The present invention relates to molds, particularly to extrusion molds with micro-sized features, and more particularly to micromolds having inside diameters as small as 10's of microns and to a process for fabricating same.
Molds of various types have been developed over the years to produce numerous different types of objects. Extrusion molding has been widely utilized for the fabrication of products on a commercial level.
Molds with micro-sized features, however, have been extremely difficult to fabricate. Most of the very small molds have utilized clam-shell type devices which have problems with sealing and leakage, particularly when products are being formed from polymers. The prior known micro-sized molds also have non-uniform thermal properties which are critical to the extrusion process.
The present invention overcomes the above-mentioned problems of the prior art micro-sized molds. The micro-sized mold of the present invention, is particularly applicable for polymer extrusion. The mold is fabricated using a sacrificial mandrel by precision machining/electroplating/etching operations which produces a singular, hollow mold assembly that can be tailored to be thermally uniform and has micro-sized feature dimensions.